Amazon Tab News

Well.  There we go.  I better put my Nook up for sale while people will still buy it!  We're talking "free" here, people.  You get streaming vid, free 2 day shipping and now free reading with Amazon Prime.  When it first came out, a  couple years ago, I thought "This is dumb.  You can't wait a couple days for a book?"  $80 for the 2 day free shipping?  Sheesh.  But guess what.  If you can buy 1 thing for $10 and have it shipped free 2 day, it starts looking better.  Add in the video thing, now you don't need Netflix at $10 a month.  Add in free older books (whatever older means) and suddenly Amazon is the place to be.

Amazon's coming tablet could feature an annual library subscription model that would let readers access older books, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.
Citing unnamed sources, the report said the library content would be available to Amazon's Prime customers, who currently pay $79 a year for unlimited two-day shipping for products purchased on Amazon.com as well as access to digital movies and TV shows on the site.


According to the Journal's unnamed sources, Amazon would offer book publishers a fee for participating in the subscription program. The company would also limit the number of books an Amazon Prime customer could read without charge every month. 


Amazon Subscription Plan

I think I'm practically an authority by now on solar chargers for ereaders.  As we learned with the Chevy Volt this whole arena is sort of scammy.
The sellers lie.  They say their units will charge your reader but the reality is far different.  As far as I can tell nothing charges a Nook Color so that you could actually read it.  Maybe if you wanted to throw $500 at it you could get something.  There's nothing under $200 powerful enough.  Yes, I spoke directly to the companies.

Update: I got an email from the Powermonkey people and they say their range will charge a reader.  They don't day how long this will take.  They have the Extreme which sells for $190.  That probably will do it in an incredibly slow fashion--and I mean it might take 2 days--but that's still twice as fast as a smaller unit.  Don't forget this isn't set it and forget it.  You put the thing outside in full sun and you have to keep rushing out to track the sun.  When they say direct sunlight, they mean DIRECT.

If Bezos was smart, you could access the Kindle Tab battery so it is easy to change/replace.  It's very difficult, I've read, to get into the Nook.

You're better off having a spare and using that when we are going through TEOTWAWKI (The End Of The World As We Know It).  After the batteries are dead, you ain't reading no more.  Deal with it.  You're probably better off spending $200 on freeze dried food.

I have no idea about the whole cell phone thing; apparently they're so small a solar panel over hours in the sun (provided it doesn't melt which seems to happen with frightening regularity) will charge it.  I don't know who you'll call when civilization collapses.  Maybe you want to say goodbye to someone.  If the EMP hasn't (it will) wiped out all the towers.